2016 looks to be the year the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will place its biggest bet on the value of spectrum and begin to see whether two novel approaches to spectrum management are hits or misses.
Continue Reading FCC Aims High in 2016 with Incentive Auction, 3.5 GHz Band
The appeals of the Open Internet Order have been consolidated in United States Telecom Assoc. v. FCC, No. 15-1063 (and consolidated cases) (D.C. Cir. filed Mar. 23, 2015). Thus, the court that decided Verizon v. FCC will rule on the FCC’s second attempt to extend its jurisdiction over the Internet.
Continue Reading Open Internet Order: Appellate Advocacy at Full Throttle
The entry summarizes the major elements of the Open Internet Order. An analysis of the FCC’s policy determinations and reasoning for regulating broadband internet access service as a Title II telecommunications service will be provided in a later entry.
Broadband Internet Access Service Defined. The Open Internet rules apply to “broadband Internet access service”
The FCC’s Monthly Meeting scheduled for 26 February 2015 is both widely-anticipated and one in series of continuing events. The FCC will likely adopt its net neutrality order and order preempting certain state restrictions on municipal broadband by 3-2 votes. Both decisions will be appealed.
The immediate questions are whether the net neutrality rules will
At the CES Conference earlier this month, Chairman Wheeler signaled the FCC would adopt net neutrality rules, including a ban on paid prioritization, consistent with President Obama’s blog post from November. These remarks were noteworthy because the Chairman stated he would circulate a draft net neutrality order for adoption at the February Commission Meeting that would rely on Title II of the Communications Act as authority for the anti-blocking and anti-discrimination rules that the D.C. Court of Appeals struck down last January in Verizon v. FCC.
Continue Reading Draft Legislation Targets Title II-Based Net Neutrality Rules
As 2015 begins, the FCC has reportedly chosen Title II with forbearance as the basis for targeted Net Neutrality rules. Other headline issues are the incentive auction, re-assessing whether the Communications Act empowers the FCC to pre-empt state laws limiting municipal broadband networks, and redefining broadband as 25 MBPS downstream/3 MBPS downstream.
A confluence of factors confirms the FCC’s 2013 Wireless Signal Booster Report and Order is best viewed as a “first-step” in addressing wireless in-building reception challenges.
Significant “gaps” in wireless reception within multi-story buildings and large complexes are likely to persist as long as wireless carriers can decide whether and on what terms to allow property owners to install “industrial signal boosters”–operated in connection with in-building distributed antenna systems (DAS) or not–even though wireless carrier discretion and control are central themes of the Report and Order.
Several trends strongly suggest carrier discretion could prove problematic for persons living or working within multi-story buildings.
• The growing number of individuals under 35 years of age that rely exclusively on wireless for voice communications is unprecedented, as noted in the Sixteenth Mobile Wireless Competition Report: “Approximately half of all adults aged 18-24 and aged 30-34 lived in wireless-only households in the first half of 2012, while nearly 60 percent of adults aged 25-29 did so.”
• For the foreseeable future, new home construction and new household formation will occur predominantly in the multi-family, MDU sector, as opposed to single family construction and homes, particularly among millennials.
• In many multi-story buildings (residential and commercial), access to the outside of the buildings is not feasible; terraces are not commonplace in “high rise” developments. Thus, consumer signal boosters will not be a solution because their antennas are intended to be mounted on the outside of buildings.
• The commitment of property developers to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (“LEED”) materials and practices, including Low-E windows that are both extremely energy efficient and extremely effective in blocking wireless signals.
A “carrier-driven” solution that could overcome these challenges is small cell technology. While internal cabling is still required, the costs and time to deploy small cells reportedly compare very favorably to DAS deployments. One drawback to small cell technology, which also may be WiFi-enabled, is that this technology likely will be deployed on a carrier-specific basis. Thus, the so-called “neutral host” DAS may prove preferable for many in-building environments because all carriers can be accommodated by these systems. This is particularly critical in MDUs and multi-tenant commercial buildings.
Even though the carriers hold many “of the cards” for addressing in-building wireless reception challenges, developers and property owners will have to “ante up,” as well. These challenges will require their engagement and dollars to deliver viable solutions to their residents and tenants. The “wild cards” include near-by construction and development that can impair wireless reception at a given property and other changes in the macro wireless environment, requiring flexibility and resources from both carriers and property owners.
For the preferred multi-carrier, in-building solutions, the costs typically run well into six figures or more per property; the design and planning of the solution, securing approval from each wireless carrier, and implementing the solution can take upwards of one year. Unfortunately, not all carriers agree to participate in every project. While carrier agreements with property owners and enterprises are terribly one-sided, a threshold concern is that the carriers typically demand these agreements be limited to five-year terms and that they have the unilateral right to renew or not, thereby putting at risk the property owner’s infrastructure investments.
These property-specific negotiations also have broader implications. FCC proposals to promote the efficacy of wireless handset indoor location accuracy for 9 1 1 calls (text or voice) in multi-story buildings will prove to be an academic exercise if wireless signals cannot be transmitted from these locations, even if slightly distorted by in-building wireless reception solutions.
The 2013 Report and Order is a positive first step. Its utility and success are open questions at this time. If it falls short, the Commission may be compelled to limit carrier discretion in regard to industrial signal boosters and impose an affirmative obligation on wireless carriers to support in-building wireless reception solutions.
Continue Reading Significant Challenges to In-Building Wireless Reception Remain, Despite the FCC’s Signal Booster Report and Order
As widely reported and commented upon, in Verizon v. FCC decided on January 14, 2014, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia vacated the anti-blocking and anti-discrimination rules adopted in the FCC’s Open Internet Order, but declined to vacate the network disclosure rules (pertaining to Internet access services providers’ network management practices).
Continue Reading D.C. Circuit Deletes Open Internet Order, but Gives FCC a Password to Regulate Internet Access Services Providers
CTIA Offers to Unlock Devices; Will FCC Accept the Proposal?
As widely reported, CTIA responded positively in most respects to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s November 14 letter requesting CTIA revise its Code of Conduct to incorporate five principles for unlocking wireless handsets, including the 3rd principle that calls for the wireless carriers to “affirmatively notify customers when their devices are eligible for unlocking and/or automatically unlock devices when eligible, without an additional fee.”
Continue Reading FCC Accepts CTIA’s Offer to Unlock Wireless
Derek Khana, the de facto spokesperson for cellphone unlocking, recently published a position piece in Forbes, offering a compelling counter argument to a recent editorial in the Hill in which one of the many D.C. “think tanks” offered up a defense of wireless carriers’ policies that limit unlocking, bubble-wrapped in the importance of intellectual property